When the Path Pricks
by The Assassin's Pen
Summary: Ciri and Geralt take on a contract together but a freak accident during the battle knocks the fight right out of Geralt-permanently if Ciri can't find help in time. Seeing him like this throws her back to all the things so far that have tried to keep them apart. Set post game, Yen x Geralt, Geralt and Ciri father/daughter relationship. Regis makes an appearance.


This came about because of a lot of things, but one of them is realizing just how hard Geralt gets smacked in the chest sometimes. The answer is really, really, wow how is he still able to finish that fight, _hard_. So naturally I had to write the one time he gets hit a little _too_ hard.

That experiment turned into one with all my faves fussing over Geralt so here's the disclaimer: Lots of book references in this one, but game-only people should still be fine. Wrote with the assumption that Geralt retired sort of with Yennefer to Toussaint and Regis didn't finish Dettlaff off, he just snuck what was left of him away and the duchess was none the wiser.

* * *

Ciri never, ever wanted to be in this position again. She still remembered Rivia, remembered that strike of cold that blew through her like thin cloth when she realized that Geralt was dying.

Geralt was dying.

 _Geralt was dying_.

She mouthed the word _no_ as his eyes went wide and his breath came out in a huff of warm mist. He fell to his knees in slow motion and a hand went to his chest in surprise, touching the exact place the Forktail had just hit him. It had been a hard, merciless blow and he'd braced against it, a dazed look of shock freezing his features in the aftermath.

Ciri hadn't seen the consequences at first; she'd gone straight for the beast, folded space and time, stepped through in a flash and slid her sword between its vertebra. It writhed, shuddered, and fell dead with her still balanced on its back. She'd hopped down, her back to her father when that feeling of dread struck her. She'd been bonded to him since before she'd been born in a way she'd never fully understood, and it manifested most strongly when he was in danger. She turned slowly, and that's when she saw the stricken expression a moment before his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed boneless to the snowy ground.

"Geralt!?" she cried in shock and alarm, her boots slipping in the snow as she rushed to him, sheathing her sword still gore covered, her gloved hands flying to his shoulder. He'd fallen on his side and she quickly rolled him onto his back, his limp body doing nothing to resist her. The snow fell against his hair, melting in tiny drops on his warm skin, but the only fog came from her own breath. Geralt was utterly still, ice beginning to collect and cake on the cold links in his armor.

"Geralt, come on," she pleaded, patting his cheek, her eyes searching him for some sign. What could possibly have happened? She passed her hand across his torso, searching for injury but there was none. Nothing visible, not even any blood. He'd just—gone down. Desperately, she bent her head by his nose and mouth, holding her breath while she waited for his. When that failed she stripped her gloves off in a rush and shoved her fingers into his throat, harshly prying at his collar to get it out of the way. His stubble scratched her fingers and his heat still warmed them but no matter how long she waited there was no pulse.

No pulse at all. Just the stillness of his body and the whistling of wind.

"Geralt, no, please," she hissed, her brow twisting so hard it hurt. She curled her numbing fingers in his armor, keeping her hand against his throat in the prayer that he would answer her. He didn't. There was nothing. Not a whisper of that strong heart she'd fallen asleep against on the first night he'd rescued her in Brokilon.

She was paralyzed for a moment, staring into his slack face, unable to process how quickly it had happened. Was this where she would always have to end up? Finally finding him and then holding him while he died, stolen from her, from Yennefer? She was no healer. She was a witcher, a child of the elder blood, a rat, someone who'd only ever killed. She'd saved him once with the unicorn's help—but that was another matter entirely. Anger burned through her at the injustice of it. The white wolf would not die on a simple hunt.

"No," she murmured, summoning her strength and heaving him up so she could lock her arms around his rib cage. "This is not happening. You're not leaving me."

With a shudder of power the world split open and she walked through, dragging Geralt's body with her into a place that she found by pure instinct.

The walls were musty stone meant to house the dead, and rats scattered out of her way as she dragged Geralt across the floor. The only light came from a dying fire, one that flared with supernatural intensity when Ciri turned her burning gaze on it. She lay Geralt in front of it, the portal dying away with a crackle like tamed thunder.

"Cirilla? What—oh my."

Emil Regis was standing just inside the circle of firelight, his features morphing quickly back to human from the long fangs and claws he'd been sporting to confront whomever had just stepped into his home. He was on his knees in an instant, turning Geralt's head to the side and pressing his fingers to the place Ciri's had only just vacated.

"Something's stopped his heart, but I can still smell the life in him," Regis said grimly. "What happened?" he asked, breaking the buckles on Geralt's armor like they were rotten twine.

"We had a contract up north, he got in too close and a forktail struck him in the chest. He braced against it, didn't even fall at first—I thought he was fine. Then he just collapsed and stopped breathing." She gestured, trying to relay without letting her throat clog up. "I didn't know what to do, his heart just-" she couldn't finish and she grasped his hand, watching Regis tear away his armor, scattering links of black steel. Her brow twisted as Regis quickly bent and lay his head against Geralt's chest, one hand resting on the ribs like he was listening with all his might.

"It's as I thought," Regis said after a moment, sitting up so quickly he was a blur. All of his motions after that were supernaturally quick, flitting from place to place in his lab as he gathered ingredients and crushed them between his fingers as he mixed something and explained. "Human and witcher hearts alike have several layers of shock protection. Muscle, bone, and the protective sack and fluid that cradle the organ are all highly effective precautions, but sometimes, if struck in exactly the right place at exactly the right time with exactly the right amount of force, the blow can cause a heart to simply stop. The beast struck him in such a way that his heart was stunned out of rhythm." He appeared in another blur to kneel again, setting two long syringes on Geralt's chest as he held a bowl out to the fire and briefly warmed the contents.

"His heart is quivering right now, trying to recover but unable to coordinate," he continued, stirring the concoction furiously and pulling a vial from his pouch. "His mutations are on our side. He can survive longer than any human could without sufficient blood flow, so provided we get his heart working properly again in the next minute or so he should make a full recovery." He broke the top off the vial with a flick of his sharp nail, filling the first syringe with its gold contents and the second with the concoction from the bowl.

"You have a way to do that?" Ciri asked, tension making her ache as she watched the vampire-turned-healer work.

"In theory, yes. I do." Regis took the syringe with the mixture, moving his shirt aside and driving the needle into Geralt's chest without ceremony. Ciri's fingers tightened on Geralt's hand, but Regis had to know what he was doing and she had to trust him.

"This will stop the quivering, quiet his heart completely," Regis said, depressing the plunger. "It will allow his heart to relax fully, fill with blood again and start over with some help."

Ciri swallowed, worry lining between her eyes as she furrowed her brow and tried to believe that Regis was helping, even if she couldn't understand how. "And the second syringe?"

"My venom. That's the help." Before Ciri could ask Regis had plunged the second needle next to the puncture from the first and injected his venom straight into Geralt's heart. He waited only a few seconds for the needle to empty completely before pulling it out and lacing his hands over Geralt's breast, giving a few measured presses. Ciri chewed her lip, wincing as the vampire compressed Geralt's sternum. After he'd done fifteen solid compressions Regis paused and pressed his fingers into Geralt's throat, watching the still face and waiting.

"Come on, old friend. Come back."

Ciri held her breath, tears pooling in her eyes the longer he was still. His hand was still warm where she held to it. The whole ordeal had only taken a few minutes, and she clung to that.

Finally, when her lungs burned with the effort of waiting Geralt gasped, coughing harshly and gulping air. Regis steadied him with a hand on his chest.

"Now his heart is racing, as I predicted. It will take some time for his body to metabolize the venom and calm down, but the rhythm is healthy. It will sustain him."

Geralt's eyes had shot open with his gasping, but the pupils were drawn so tightly they were barely there at all. He panted, staring up at the ceiling for several moments before his eyes rolled back and he passed out again. This time, though Ciri's own heart was in her throat, Geralt's continued pumping strong.

Shaky with relief and adrenaline, Ciri huffed, resting with her hand on Geralt's arm and her head on his chest for a moment as she got her breath back and waited for her heart to stop racing. Geralt's heart was pumping like he'd just been in the fight of his life, fast and hard under her forehead. Finally feeling like her head was clearing enough for speech, she looked up at Regis.

"Thank you, but what in the world did you do to him? How did that help?"

"The forktail only stunned his heart severely enough to disrupt its natural rhythm," Regis explained, moving his fingers away from Geralt's throat where he'd been checking the pulse against the rapid pounding that was so easy for him to hear. "There was no lasting injury, only some bruising that will now develop around the impact site. That meant I only needed to remind his heart of its purpose. It was trying to beat, but it was making the attempt poorly and so could only quiver. The first injection was a mild paralyzing agent, a burst of suppressants to soak into the muscle and stop the quivering. As I said before, it allowed his heart to fill fully."

"And your venom? How did that help?"

"Vampire venom is a very powerful cardiac stimulant. It is in our best interest while feeding to keep the heart beating as long as possible—if it stops the blood not directly adjacent with the bite wound is very difficult to get to. When I injected the venom, I had only to get it into the veins that feed the heart itself, so I forced his heart to pump by compressing it until the venom made it to those veins and triggered a reaction. Alas, his heart is now working much harder than normal, but it will not leave lasting damage and his metabolism will burn it out as it does his potions. It is good he is unconscious at present; a heartbeat faster than one hundred is very uncomfortable for a witcher."

Ciri nodded, her shoulders relaxing. "But he'll be okay?" she asked, seeking assurance in the vampire's kind expression. Regis gave her a soft smile and pat her hand, nodding.

"Yes, my dear. He will be fine. This was nothing but a very bad coincidence, and you got him to me in plenty of time. His heart sounds strong and fully intact, and I can smell the vitality in his blood as strongly as I can sense yours."

She smiled. "Thank you, Regis."

"It was my pleasure, I'm fond of him too," Regis said kindly, moving away long enough to fetch a blanket to cover Geralt with. "If he wakes before I return, do apologize for me over the state of his armor."

"He'll get over it, but I'll tell him," Ciri chuckled, looking down at Geralt and arranging some loose strands of that silky white hair behind his ear. She brushed his beard with her knuckles, relieved to the point of tears to see and hear him breathing again. He'd survived so much, sometimes she still relapsed into the childish idea that he was invincible, no matter how many times she'd been proved otherwise.

Regis left them alone, and Ciri stoked up the fire by conventional means this time, piling on a few logs and sweet herbs before settling next to Geralt again. She rest against his side, slowly laying her head down on his chest the way she used to when she was much smaller. Their bodies didn't fit like they had then, but she hugged his arm anyway and closed her eyes, listening to his heartbeat as it slowly came down from the venom and back to the slow, earthy resonance she'd fallen asleep to as a girl.

"You had me worried," she whispered to him after a time, opening her eyes and glancing up at him. He was still asleep, but she didn't need him to hear her really, she just needed to get it out. "It hurt enough the first time, back in Rivia. It seems no matter how I tried as a girl, you were always taken from me, in one way or another." She fell silent for a moment, casting her eyes down and rubbing meaningless patterns into his forearm with her thumb.

"Did you know, I started looking for you and Yennefer long before we found one another again? I had horrible dreams of you falling asleep in the snow and never waking again, and I could never tell if they were fears or visions. I'm still not certain if I'm being honest with myself, but I remember one thing being clearer to me than anything: I had to find you. I had to find you both before something horrible claimed you."

She lay there and wiped the tears from her eyes harshly, angry for a moment that they were there at all. Sorceresses didn't cry.

Sometimes though, sometimes she didn't want to be a sorceress. Not at all. If she hadn't had her powers she wouldn't have spent her whole life trying to survive, or being hunted, or being pulled away from the two people who really cared about her enough to keep fighting.

Maybe though...maybe without her powers she wouldn't have been bonded to Geralt at all. That thought made her want to close her eyes against the world and breathe in Geralt's warmth and stop thinking all together because she knew, given the choice, she'd rather have her powers and all the pain and have Geralt than live normally and not know him beyond legend.

"I love the two of you so dearly," she whispered, wrapping her arm across his chest and squeezing into his side, sighing. She listened to his lungs and to his heart, and she pretended for a moment that the warmth on her cheek was from the sunlight of Brokilon instead of a fire in a cemetery's belly. She pretended that all the horror hadn't happened yet and the taste of the apple Geralt had given her some lifetime ago was still on her tongue.

She came awake to fingers in her hair. For a moment it scared her badly and she tensed around the person beneath her, her bright eyes wide in fear. She stopped breathing and didn't dare move. The person touching her sensed her distress and paused, waiting for a long few moments.

"Ciri?" a voice ventured eventually, quiet and uncertain.

Her head jerked up and she looked at Geralt's face. His eyes were open but uncertain, reflecting the light of the fire with that strange cat's glow as they sought her face.

 _Tapetum lucidum_ , she thought, reaching up trembling fingers to touch his face and assure herself this was real. It was. He was. The glowing membrane in his eyes flashed softly as he blinked.

A deranged scientist had once sought to cut that reflective layer from Geralt's eyes. He hadn't told her about it but she'd found out anyway. She'd shuddered at the story, finding it hard to even imagine Geralt strapped to a madman's table, the eyes that had so frightened her as a girl gouged cruelly from his head. They didn't frighten her now, nor had they since their first night after he'd found her with the couple who'd adopted her after Cintra had fallen.

She'd woken up in a haze of nightmares that night, the fires of her home and the screams of her people still stinging her skin. She'd scrambled awake whimpering and something large moved in the night, rushing back to the firelight. She'd seen his eyes first, predatory in the dark before the rest of him emerged and she could see the concern etched into his expression. He'd knelt by her and spoken to her softly, as he was now, and she'd never been afraid of those supernatural eyes again.

"Geralt," she choked, burying her head into his shoulder and hugging him fiercely, even if it was difficult with him still on the floor. Geralt hugged her back, the relief he felt evident in his embrace.

"I was so afraid-" Ciri admitted, pulling away and helping him sit gingerly up. She poured him some water into the tin cup Regis left and held it out, cradling it until she was certain his unsteady hands had it. "I've never seen you take a blow like that. Never seen anyone just-" she swallowed. She'd seen plenty of death, but she'd also always seen it coming in some way.

He drank long and sighed, holding the empty cup and watching her with a furrowed brow. He seemed to consider what he was going to say for a long time, but in the end he only said "I'm sorry."

"What for?" Ciri asked, taking the cup back and reaching out to touch his jaw, coaxing him to turn his head just slightly more towards the fire so she could examine his eyes. One eye was alarmingly red, flooded with blood from a broken vessel. It looked frightful but she knew it was harmless and would clear up in a few days. "You couldn't help what happened. I'm only grateful Regis knew what to do. How do you feel?"

"It seems I never can help what happens," he said softly, leaning against a wooden beam supporting the heavy ceiling. "I'm sore, but that's nothing new. Head and chest kinda hurt. Regis explains why we're in a crypt. I was afraid for a moment that we were on a very different kind of contract than the one I prepared for." He didn't move far from Ciri's touch, allowing her to continue her examination as she gently parted his shirt and inspected his rib cage for breaks with careful fingers. He hissed as she pressed on the bruising.

"Sorry," she said, leaning back on her heels and taking his hand, squeezing it as she gave him a small smile. "And Regis wanted to apologize for the state of your armor. We—he needed to work quickly. There wasn't much choice."

Geralt slowly shrugged out of the broken straps of leather and metal, pulling it off his arms with stiff movements and laying it aside. "Not the first set I've had destroyed," he said sadly. "It does get expensive though."

"I may be able to assist in that area," Regis said, coming into the light and crouching by Geralt. "There's some gold down the tunnel to the south. I doubt the current occupant would mind you borrowing a few coins. How are you feeling, my friend?"

"Hungry. It's good to see you, Regis."

"Yes, I thought you might be," he said, holding out the pomegranate and hunk of cheese he'd been carrying. Geralt took them and Regis settled and crossed his legs. "We really must stop meeting when you're in some dire situation. It isn't good for an old man like me to experience such a shock," Regis joked, his fangs showing some with his brief smile.

"Believe me Regis, if I knew how to retire, I would, but I think quitting all together would kill me faster. You could come back to Toussaint though, visit the vineyard."

Regis shrugged one shoulder. "Maybe in a few years. Dettlaff—" he sighed through his nose. "He needs more looking after for the moment. I'm finally beginning to make progress. He spoke a few words three nights back. It's not much but it's something."

Geralt nodded, placing a hand on Regis' shoulder. "I'm glad to hear it."

He'd known back in Toussaint that Regis wouldn't truly be able to finish Dettlaff off. He nearly had; reduced him to little more than a broken skeleton strung with blood and viscera, but he'd taken what remained and had been repaying his debt in earnest.

Just as Dettlaff had nursed Regis back to health, Regis was doing the same for Dettlaff, working with him to dissolve his monumental temper at the same time. With any luck Dettlaff would be a much mellower member of the species by the time he was back to strength. Geralt knew having Dettlaff truly helped Regis, and he trusted the vampire more than he trusted almost anyone so he was willing to see what happened. It would be decades before Dettlaff would be any real threat to anybody anyway.

"And I'm grateful my treatment seems to have worked splendidly. All your faculties appear intact, so it seems the only true damage is to your equipment. I do apologize sincerely for that, I know a Witcher's gear is his lifeline."

"Not this time, apparently. What exactly happened?"

"Don't be so quick to dismiss your gear. Your breastplate did save your life, ultimately," Regis said. "Without it your chest would have been crushed and your heart burst. It absorbed enough shock that the blow only...incapacitated you until I could intervene."

Geralt raised an eyebrow at the choice of words, but frowned when he saw how pale Ciri appeared. He squeezed her hand in question and she glanced at him, biting her cheek.

"Ciri?" he ventured.

"I'm fine, Geralt. Truly. You just—you scared me quite badly."

He pressed his lips together but he'd already apologized. There was nothing else for him to say.

"Oh gods," Ciri exclaimed suddenly, giving Geralt a start as he was half way through the hunk of cheese.

"What?"

"Yennefer—surely she felt that but she's no idea where we are now."

"She can't sense everything," Geralt reasoned. "I've been injured plenty of times and she didn't find out till later."

Ciri wasn't listening, getting up concentrating as she opened a new portal. Geralt glanced with a questioning expression at Regis, but Regis just dropped his gaze and shook his head.

That was when Geralt realized he hadn't been injured. He'd been killed.

He had to clear his throat suddenly to stop from choking on a pomegranate seed and Regis thumped him carefully on the back as Yennefer stepped through the portal, took a moment to let her eyes adjust, and then embraced Ciri in a rush.

"Are you alright?" the sorceress was exclaiming, pulling back and examining Ciri's face, gripping her shoulders in her urgency. "Where is he?"

"I'm fine, he's okay now, he's by the fire," Ciri said, pointing in Geralt's direction. Yennefer looked, not bothering to mask her worry.

"Geralt," she breathed, rushing to him and falling to her knees, taking his head in her hands and kissing him, completely disregarding the pomegranate he'd only just managed to swallow.

"I'm alright, Yen," he assured, reaching out his free hand to squeeze her arm. "So's Ciri."

"It was a nasty coincidence. Nothing more," Regis assured, though he'd stood and backed out of the way when Yennefer came running over.

"I felt the blow, even all the way back in Toussaint," Yennefer said, her fingers barely brushing the horrible bruising mottling his chest. "Gods, how are you still breathing..." she murmured.

"With difficulty," Geralt admitted.

"He will be stiff and sore for some time, but there's no lasting damage. I recommend both Witchers take a few weeks at the vineyard before accepting another contract."

"That sounds wise," Yennefer murmured, finishing the cooling spell she'd murmured and placing her hand on Geralt's chest. His eyes closed and he breathed a little deeper in relief as the cold eased the ache.

She'd never fought him on going back out on contracts with Ciri. She knew Ciri was doing what made her happy and even if he hadn't chosen the Witcher's life some part of his wild heart still loved it. His retirement would never be completely lazy days and wine, she knew that, but he no longer needed to run himself to the next contract before healing like he'd done most of his life.

"Come on," she said after a moment, nodding her thanks to Regis as she helped her lover stand. "Let's get you home." She cast a meaningful look Ciri's way. " _Both_ of you. You may clean your sword and bathe while I settle Geralt in."

Ciri hid her smile halfheartedly as she gave Regis a wave and followed her parents back through the portal.

* * *

If parts felt a little rougher than my usual style it's because this was written weeks apart and my writing brain is a little stuck at the moment. Haven't decided if I'm gonna add another chapter but if people want more and can give me ideas for what would go on in the next chapter perhaps I will post more. I'm always down for family fics and the only thing there's less of than Geralt x Yennefer is Geralt with Ciri. Which is a crying shame.


End file.
